"A New Invitation;" Sermon for Sunday August 28th, 2016 by Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins, FODM

I believe it was near the last year or so at my first Seminary where the class I was in saw a really interesting film called Babette's Feast. It was a lovely story about a woman who comes to work for two sisters and their family’s congregation as a cook. Basically after winning a lottery, she decides to spend all of her winnings on a gigantic meal for the whole community.  Her simple but beautiful sacrifice in serving others was the heart of this film’s message. The film spoke volumes on not only hospitality and welcome but also to the profound sense of humility that this woman developed.

It wasn't so much remembering this film and its wonderful message, but just remembering those early days of forming my faith journey into Ministry with Christ slowly but surely moving towards the center of my life, where He truly needed to be. I also found myself thinking about the notion of invitation as well as the notion of humble service.  The word invitation holds a strong dual meaning.  This meaning could literally be a beautiful inclusive welcome through brotherly love or it could be how the Pharisees saw it as a right and privilege—something of exclusion based around the self and its elevation.

The Pharisees kept going out of their way to try to not only chastise Jesus for His sense of inclusiveness and compassion but they continued to try to “bend the perception” of what is right to their agenda. Which for them was one built on their many years of arrogance and pride.  How could they truly serve God if they were on their own pedestal of self-righteousness and works righteousness? But then let us not forget that the Gospel message of Jesus was radical, counter-cultural and went against the seemingly logical grain of human nature! I wonder honestly how often we think about the radical aspect of who Jesus was and His message for us to incorporate?  In many ways, we must see His example to our lives as a grand invitation to that New reality—the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God as a New beginning reaping that New Nature within us to love and live into Grace—a spiritual feast and journey for us all to grow into!

Coming to the table of God is our journey of growing and stretching those boundaries of the self beyond the self.  I wonder how many people contemplate or reflect upon the notion of humility as a Godly gift?  Faith we know is a gift from God to enable us to naturally grow and respond into the lifestyle of Grace… But what about humility? I believe when you discipline the self to realize its spiritual side is when you DO have the capacity to develop and operate through a Godly sense of humility.  Babette’s character in the film never let not receiving an acknowledgment or praise from others detour her from her spiritual task to SHARE.  Watching this film, you feel sadness and perhaps a natural sense of injustice being done to her… but that’s our human nature’s logic… We can’t successfully avoid harboring pride, yet alone the ego.  The ego is the Old Nature—our earthly nature but not Kingdom of God shaped Nature.

This is our stumbling block however to truly accepting and growing into this New invitation is the sin of pride and the ego. They are still a great force in the world today, though in some instances have taken on a more sinister quality. This past week, let’s just say I’ve been doing too much reading and watching the news… I say this for I read something very interesting the other day about the CEO of Nestle Foods—the “candy-bar” people. Basically to summarize what the CEO was saying, is that he feels people do not have the “right” to water. Which you have to kind of think about that one for a moment... Yikes! I’m sorry but who has the right to say that God's green earth is something to be completely rationed out, controlled? This is purely the voice of uncontrolled Greed! I felt as well, the sinister aspect of that, beyond the greed… Water is the source or significant factor of all life.  This fact is not only apparent through science but we know this spiritually as well through faith—Baptism, and so forth. No one has the right or claim to covet and control the sources of life that is God’s choice alone!

But then, if you recall as well, another recent blip in the news about the production and sales of Epipens... The CEO to that company decided to give herself something like a 574% raise by raising the price of the pens from $90 to $600. Out of curiosity I had to research the cost of the materials and substance of the pens and they cost in reality somewhere underneath $5 to make… I normally don't choose to do too much activism via “online petitions” but I did sign a petition in thinking of the well-being of others… Those who are truly dependent upon this product, should seek to have it regulated back to its original cost and perhaps maybe this person needs to be prosecuted for her blatant greed and indifference!  I am grateful I don’t necessarily need to have one of those pens on me for my lentil bean allergy but wonder about those who have to carry one on them for peanuts, etc. Shouldn't there be a boundary of when something becomes criminally indifferent and unconscionably unethical? I think so.

The Pharisees could care less about the poor suffering individual in today's Gospel, to them the law was more important. In fact in some commentaries I read, they feel that maybe perhaps the Pharisees even planted this ailing man in the crowds in efforts to try entrap Jesus and test him! What's disturbing spiritually about this is how often do people take the time to truly listen to God, love God and love neighbor without becoming divisive about how it's presented and are their expectations being met? What we must realize is that it is not about us, in fact, it goes so much further beyond us— is the radical calling of the Gospel to serve!

2000 years later the same thing is going on in the broken function that is the postmodern Church! Are we as pastoral leaders to the Body of Christ merely developing and catering to a chaplaincy to the world's culture or are we striving to serve the gospel?! Yes, the Body is comprised of people but it was not to ever become a political pawn for self-righteousness and personal agendas. Be it ever so humble fades away to the cost of keeping something that needs to change.... Let’s face the facts people, we must be a Body that grows away from the steeple… Striving not to rebuild a Pharisaic structure or a structure that caters to the Old Nature, the ego.  If things aren't allowed to change or truly progress in efforts to answer God's call.  How can we begin to reap that New Nature seed planted? How can we begin to transform and be accountable to one another?  If we don’t even make the effort to truly begin, the consequences are an ugly stagnation and eventual death....

I confess that I haven't read too much into the new category of “irreligious people” in this current culture penned by sociologists as the "nones.." but from a recent book our Sunday Bible study is looking at about Spiritual Warfare— I read about the reality of evil coming from nothingness... there is a disturbing connection to note when people are not seeing or being taught the Truth of the Gospel but are fed merely comforting words and are not led to truly serving together side by side beyond the church walls... this is the withered fruit produced! This withered fruit are a people who see no need to be a part of anything beyond themselves.  Their lives alone are their new religion.  They put their faith purely into what they need to survive.  Please forgive me, but how nihilistic and empty that must be, I can’t imagine!

Nearly daily, I have been steadily praying for where the world is going.  It’s almost like a sensory overload of bad news…  Where are we going, Lord? Every other news headline begins to underline a disturbing theme it seems: desperation breeds the diabolical. Desperate desires unfulfilled, bubbling forth in an instinctual violence or chaos.  This is going beyond the trigger-happy blotter filled with tragic stories of mothers being shot in the head with strollers in hand— an unknowing victim of gang crossfire. This goes beyond the heinous execution-style murder/ robbery of two selfless nuns who were dedicated nurse practitioners to the poor… Again my heart returns to ask where are we spiritually going?! All of this troubling news makes those beautiful Words from Hebrews perhaps draw tears...  For how can we even hear, yet alone truly live into that very first verse? “Let mutual love continue…” 

For it should be through our hope in the Lord that we seek to grow with God's Living Word, Christ Jesus, Our model.  Barnabas, the suspected author of Hebrews does seem to be giving us many tenants of what are the markers of the Christian Life—it is a journey and I have to agree it is well for the heart to be strengthened by grace not by regulations and divisive agendas, but truly by grace alone, faith alone, Christ Alone and His Living Word alone as a guiding, parental force in our lives, as long as we live. So let us come to say with confidence that we are all God’s ministers in this world with a definite purpose and we must learn how to sacrifice and rejoice together for that great invitation waiting for us, wondering for us…

We are the everyday people travelling through this world but the lasting city is one still to be found—the City of God.

Let Us Pray,

Gracious Lord of all hopefulness,

Re-shape our hearts to harbor, kindle that divine humility

To truly serve with a mutual love and grace for all that we have

Because of You, for You have calmed and quieted our souls with Your Love

Further wean us from the stumbling blocks of the Evil One

That our lives may become an invitation to Your Kingdom

AMEN

August 28th, 2016; Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 17; SOLA Lectionary

Sermon by: Reverend  Nicole A.M. Collins, FODM

Psalm 131; Proverbs 25:2-10;  Hebrews 13:1-17; Luke 14:1-14

The link below is to this sermon's delivery at the Grace Hub's House church service at 8am:
https://youtu.be/oUAZoClm8xU

"Pathways;" Sermon for Sunday August 21st, 2016 by: Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins, FODM

This Past weekend I was in an interesting old home, I believe it was over hundred twenty-five years old. What was really unusual about the second story of this home is that all the bedrooms were interconnected with shared little doors between them. I wasn't sure whether or not the person who built the home was a M.C. Escher fan or into the "ghostly arts." A couple of years ago I saw a real interesting special on one of the cable networks where this woman had a house specifically built to have interconnected rooms.  All of these rooms and hallways were leading to a particular end.  She had done this in efforts to try to free the spirits she thought were inhabiting her home and could not leave.... Let’s just say that the final product was  fascinating—a gigantic Victorian Mansion that had and featured all these elaborate rooms and pathways.... On a smaller scale with this lovely home I had the opportunity to see this past weekend, it just was so bizarre going from room to room and seeing these little doors connected to one another and to the other rooms....


Why did this image get stuck in my head when I started thinking about this week's texts? We hear from the Gospel, Jesus talks about getting through the "narrow door" but we also hear from the author of Hebrews, the pathways we must walk as a child of God. We will always be God's children and life doesn't necessarily have shortcuts that's just our pride and perhaps arrogance to assume "we've arrived."

They often say that if you dream of a home, even ones that you're in briefly that they must be saying something about your "reconstructive work." This is work that the Holy Spirit is undertaking spiritually upon your heart. If you can relate to this or have experienced something like this before, what have you seen? Did you see the homes you grew up in as a child? I know I have. Were they still standing or partially deconstructed? Were they connected to one another as a mental collage that did not seem to make real sense? Or did you see a pathway going through all of these homes and out through a narrow door that led to something much greater?

As many of you know, I have been doing a lot of reflecting about the 21st century notion of “church” and our challenge to be a renewing community, a renewing force of the Gospel, for the Gospel’s goal. The church plants, I currently serve are like those early churches in some senses, where the disciples go from house to house, but in this case, we are meeting in a hotel. Envisioning the future together is the task of the Body to be a team for Christ and to seek a Justice the world has not been too acquainted with... or even perhaps has shunned away from its pursuit....

Another powerful image to consider with that first church, the heart, is the actual physical heart itself. Much like that beautiful turn of the century home, there are many interconnecting chambers, places of "ebb and flow..." creating essentially movements in time, memory and emotion. The heart as we know is that amazing place—center of life— for if it did not beat we would literally not be alive!

The flow of blood goes in courses through your whole body over and over and changes as you change, but it continues. Think of this metaphor in regards to the flow and pathway of your own life: Are you willfully living into the Christian Life or are you willingly open to live as a disciple, God’s child of Grace and promise?

Jesus words in today's Gospel seems rather strange to our hearing for it almost seems as if He is preaching and teaching an “exclusive” note to these new disciples. What He is trying to do is to teach us to be intentional, to grow with as the author of Hebrews has said, a childlike earnestness and humility to always learn and grow from our Heavenly parent. How many of you here today think about God as your heavenly parent?

The chambers of the heart comprise the engine to keeping us alive physically but in spiritual terms it is our process of growth. This is how we grow to love our neighbor and how we grow to respond to God with the beautiful fruit of Our Lives, not lived around or catering to ourselves, but around others and in care and concern for others! Caring for others, it is so much a part of the daily calling from Christ for us to choose to Do.

Caring for the elderly can be so rewarding. It is truly rewarding when you get to journey with them through all of their memories, their life lived. The elderly gentleman with advanced dementia, that I care for on a regular basis, often fades in and out of remembering the exact dates, times, and years of when things had happened... What little he does recall is what his heart has experienced—this is important. This has been seeing his children grow up, grandchildren and the fruits from working a hard life as a carpenter.  Now he is relatively at peace, content to enjoy the simpler things of life such as sitting outside watching the day go by and playing with his cat.

Now can you imagine for a moment how God sees us as His children? What If instead of this elderly man talking about his life it is God looking back and talking about his creation and his children on Earth. And we must always remember and truthfully spiritually know, that we are children of Grace and promise. This is what the author of Hebrews was striving for us to hear.  God's discipline and God's love in and throughout our lives is our process of growing in Grace. 

Living into the lifestyle of Grace isn't to be understood in our human sense of “willfully doing things,” being just to get a prize or reward... this is Works righteousness which is an empty gesture of superficial faith.  This was Jesus’ whole point in his seemingly harsh words: “the last will be first and the first will be last.” Living into the lifestyle of Grace is truly a life built on personal reflection, upholding a conviction, belief in God, His place in your life, repentance as more or less to be a humble perspective of growing into your life with Christ at the center...  The most important and last step of this process: are you faithfully, willingly and intentionally seeking to spiritually transform?

Let's face it though, however, human nature doesn't like change too much. More often than not change is associated with negative things, it is associated with loss, it is clinging onto empty accolades that do not build your life into the future that you have and that God needs you to strive for. It is true that this world is finite but on that same note we must know as well it is physical. The Gospel is seeking to transform us spiritually! Upon this spiritual conversion and our acceptance of it, is when we begin to naturally begin to bear fruit that builds the vision and mission of the kingdom of God in the “here-and-now” of our very lives!

My spiritual walk with the Franciscan order, has taught me beautiful lessons about my faith journey. Here I am now living faithfully as a pastor to serve His disciples guiding them on their spiritual formation journeys.  The more you look back into your life and see it as humble stages of growing as well as realizing what God sees as quote “perfection” in what discipline means through God's perspective and not ours, you will see yourself like that chrysalis emerging from the shell soon to become a beautiful butterfly.

You do only truly have this one solitary earthly life but you have an eternal life waiting. This eternal life is our true home the kingdom of God and it's real righteousness it's real justice.  Be and strive to become a visionary for that greater purpose planted in your life—God's will, the New Nature in our hearts to be reaped faithfully. I often have people from my past ask me do I miss being an artist, being creative? And I tell them I've not given up being an artist and I am most definitely being creative! I'm using everything God has given me to Love Him and love my neighbor. In fact more than ever, do I feel my whole self being and living into that greater goal, purpose for my life as God sees fit.  It truly possesses a humbling Beauty and I will always be grateful for that.

Perhaps the best summary I came across in reflecting upon these texts from the letter of Hebrews is from that wonderful, now long out-of-print book called 'Epistles Now!'  This book and the adjoining series of books, come from an early project that the author of The Message Bible would complete. The author says: "Faith is capable of embracing suffering and despair and molding and maneuvering them into instruments that mature us and make us more sensitive to the hurts of others even while we learn how to more graciously accept the difficulties and hardships of this life."

In essence the pathways of faith are a lifetime’s process. It is a growth and it is a goal that you creatively respond and move forward through with Christ at the center of it all. 

Let us pray
Most Loving, Gracious God
We thank You for everything that You hope to teach us
May we strive to develop that humble spirit of faithfully being Your children of Grace and promise.
Help our hearts to flow into all of those stages, those chambers of what we need to “grow and go” with in order to live into Your Gospel’s Purpose.
Help us to spiritually transform and willingly open those interconnected doors allowing You to flow freely in, with and through our lives and all that we do and say.
Amen

August 21st 2016; 14th Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 16; Year C; SOLA Lectionary

Sermon By: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, FODM

Psalm 50:1-15; Isaiah 66:18-23; Hebrews 12:4-29; Luke 13:22-30

Below is a link to this sermon's delivery at a Thursday night vespers service at the Grace Hub's house church, August 18th, 2016, 7pm:

https://youtu.be/5joUUPGSyhw 

“Bi-Faith;” Sermon for Sunday, August 14th, 2016 By: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, FODM

I counted some 12 plus times that the author of Hebrews mentions, "by faith." The number 12 as we know, has that missional symbolic meaning of signifying the 12 tribes of Israel.... but it also symbolically represents the first witnesses to the Gospel, the disciples, Apostles. By the time of Saint Paul, these witnesses began to seed the church, not only by walking in their faith but with the sacrifice of their lives!    Theological speculation has pointed the finger to Saint Paul's fellow Church Planter companion, Barnabas, as the true author of the letter of Hebrews.  Barnabas sojourned in one direction alongside John Mark and Paul alongside Luke and Timothy, went down another.  Together their fellowship and mission planted and reaped the early foundation of the Christian Church.

Why is this important? Maybe because it points to the work of the early church in formation first and most importantly in the hearts and minds of the early Christians.  It’s hard to imagine or fathom, but the Book of Acts itself is an amazing record to how “The Way,” grew to become what maybe perhaps, we take for granted today! Here we are, over 2000 something years later foraging forward in a spiritual battle of harboring and sharing what I would like to call a "bi-faith."  This is bi dash faith. Do we reap faithfully what was truly sown in our hearts by Christ Jesus’ gospel? This is what today’s texts had me thinking about.  It is a movement that must begin in that first church, the heart then and only then afterwards our minds are to activate our hands and feet and all we have to give as an expression of “Living Faith.”

Perhaps a line from an old Beatles classic gives us the best clue: "The movement you need is on your shoulders..." for those music buffs out there that's from 'Hey Jude.' Paul Mccartney was more or less writing to console Julian Lennon on the dissolution of his mother and father’s divorce… Using this in talking about faith however: How do we get to make that “movement” needed to act upon our faith as disciples of Jesus? The heart must begin its journey to change. The heart, as I have said in many a sermon is that first church. This kind of change in the heart, is spiritual formation. It is a transformation essentially from “my will” be done to thy or “God's will” be done.

The author of Hebrews takes us through a historical journey of many figures who truly “walked and talked by faith,” from Abraham, Moses, Rehab and onwards.  Jesus' seemingly harsh words in today's Gospel are trying to kindle a fire in the hearts of those who have perhaps, fell out of that spiritual focus, discipline in living into change for the sake of God and neighbor. In fact, He even accuses them of being hypocrites! Let's face it, it has been more than easy to become indifferent. We are in an age that has catered to indifference, opting more often than not, to circumvent the urgent need, calling of Gospel to reap that New Nature seed in our hearts planted by Christ.

Our lives may never seem to reach that point of our hope-filled, faith's desire, or ultimate goal.... Look at figure such as Bonhoeffer, he went back to Germany to try to take down Hitler…  Sadly his efforts were cut short by his unknowable fate of being made a martyr, hung by the Nazis. But, if you recall what the author of Hebrews has said: we are all a part of the great “cloud of witnesses”—now is truly the time to act! We must change inwardly—what this is, is heart knowledge, essentially spiritual growth and formation. We are also called to change outwardly—this is by reaping that New Nature seed with the fruits of faith lived as gracious response.  God has been calling us for some time now to respond.  Don’t lament this reality but BE and become all things through Christ who strengthens us all!

The reality of Christ Jesus is an enduring lifetime's journey of trial and error. None of us will ever be “perfect.”  Perfection in God’s eyes is something completely different from our interpretation of the word. This journey of trial and error in our lives is to be either transformed by the Gospel of Jesus or indifferently shaped by the gospel or better understood as the agenda of the world, the ego, the self.....  So as you can see it is both “bi-faith” (bi dash faith) and the notion of “by faith” that we struggle and go to run the race for the ultimate prize—the kingdom of God and its righteousness.  This righteousness is not won by empty gestures but truly by a “God-given faith!”  We are called to bear our spiritual cross—this is a commissioning of our ultimate purpose.

Why would Barnabas feel he needed to keep reminding the Hebrews about all those historical figures walking and talking by faith? In almost the same breath, why would Christ, in some senses, seems so harsh in pointing to the people's blindness to the reality of what God really needs for us to do?  There are probably many witnesses today in the “here-and-now” of our Christian journey together as the Body, who unknowingly walked by faith, were challenged by their faith, and were strengthened by that same faith to DO, what is right beyond themselves. Speaking from my own witness, every single day I am challenged, strengthened and manage to move forward through God’s own wonderful sense of timing and humor!  Yes, I think God has a fabulous sense of humor, for many of His steps and lessons He places before us often do take us by surprise.

This is probably the most important lesson here—walking through, by faith. The gospel continues to pound away on that, what I would like to call, that “one string banjo” for us to hear and grow from: we must be shaped by the discipline, obedience of the Holy Spirit working in our lives upon our hearts and we must take seriously our call. This calling goes beyond accountability—being and faithfully living as a freely responsible servant of Christ. This calling becomes a spiritual requirement of being grateful, not willfully grateful for a “prize” or some kind of transaction in our very human way of understanding things... This is where we are to see things by willingly showing Grace naturally as fruits of the Spirit, gracious responses of faith or as one of my colleagues puts it best—“doing the DO’s of the Gospel!”

Sometimes doing things by faith require us to take that risk in order to change for the better.  This change is for Christ's sake and for our neighbor. It can even be as trivial as driving an unsafe car, since you can't afford fixing it, miles and miles away in order to care for someone who is needing your assistance. It may mean that you sacrifice your time for someone else, out of love—no strings attached… Trusting in something with an almost blind trust goes against human logic, but then, that is in many ways the requirement of growing in Grace through faith. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was never to be something "cut-and-dry," something easily digestible by our human sense of logic, ethics and so forth. If you even just contemplate, look at the Beatitudes, you can see the radical spiritual challenge Christ is putting on our spiritual plates to digest.

Jesus didn’t spend those three years of ministry creating comfortable sayings to make us “feel rewarded” and simply “comforted.”  As I was told at the beginning of my seminary journey, just like Jesus, we are called to be like that unpopular herald, Jeremiah and preach to “Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted…”

Did Saint Paul, Saint Luke, Timothy, John Mark and Barnabas among many of the early church Planters know what the lasting results would be of their sojourning? I highly doubt it, what they did have was that they genuinely held great hope, trust and were encouraging one another to take on the challenge of living into their faith. They, as the saying goes, not only “talked their faith” but “walked in their faith.” We are called to do the same, but not necessarily in the same shoes, but most truly and honestly, through our lives’ stories which all have differences but we are all called to be living into our faith, by our faith, for a much greater purpose!

The Peace of Christ which does surpasses all understanding is not out of our reach! This peace is something that you grow into. Growth as a disciple of Jesus, person of faith is spiritual maturity—your life times’ journey. May all of us learn through baby steps and then greater steps soon to become leaps and bounds on our own journeys.  These leaps and bounds are what make up the “ultimate prize” or the goal, “the completion of the race” as spoken about in Hebrews. This goal is the kingdom of God in the Here and Now, for the glory of God and truly for the love of neighbor.

Let us pray,
Gracious and loving Lord Jesus,
Help us to find that spiritual balance
Where We Are changing inwardly and outwardly for the sake of your Gospel’s goal
May we joyfully accept and live into being that commissioned part of the Great cloud of witnesses!
May the peace of Christ truly take root in all that we DO and say for his sake and our neighbors.
In your most precious and beautiful name we pray
Amen

August 14th, 2016; 13th Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 15; Year C; SOLA Lectionary

Sermon By: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins

Psalm 119:81-88; Jeremiah 23:16-29; Hebrews 11:17-40; 12:1-3; Luke 12:49-56

This sermon was delivered at a special evening service at the Grace Hub's house church since Pastor Collins and her husband will be celebrating their 7th wedding anniversary, August 15th.

 https://youtu.be/ysF0OmHD9X4